Because there was so many people in the family we learned early that if
you wanted anything other than the, the shelter, food and clothing, you
had to go get it yourself. So I started to work when I was fourteen. And
during high school I drove the school bus and I worked at Colonial
Store, which was a grocery store, and went to school. And then after I
graduated I was making plans to go to college and I'd saved up all my
money, so I would have enough for the first year at Elon. And, the store
closed, and one of the members from Byrd's Food Center came to Colonial
Store and wanted my sister and myself to come to work for them. She
choose not to and I needed the money. I was eighteen at that time, just graduated from high school, and I
needed the money to get in school. So I went to work for Byrd's and I
met Bruce then. Well, during the summer, my brother had had an auto
accident and I was the only one with money. And he had no insurance and
so I had to take the money - I didn't have to, I just felt compelled and
I couldn't stand to see my mother worry about what he would do. So we
used my college money. And, it just kind of took the winds out of my
sails for a while. And, it was like the worst tragedy in this whole
world that I had lost my dream and I had, I had gone so far in making
sure that I had just enough money to pay my tuition, my books -
everything. And I would live at home and go to school. And, then I
thought, well, I'll do something different but I can't do anything
different without money. So I continued to work. I met Bruce that
summer. And, he used to come and stand and look at me. And so I told
somebody that knew him, I said, tell him to stop looking at me, if he
wants a date have him to ask me, otherwise stop looking at me, cause he
was making me nervous. So he asked me for a date and I immediately fell
in love, head over heels in love with him because he kissed my hand and
nobody had ever kissed my hand before. On, at the end of the first date
- we just talked and talked and talked and talked and talked - and he
kissed my hand while I was walking up the steps. And I was lost from
that point on it was it. And besides he was, he was very intelligent and
he had a different world, and I thought, well maybe I ought to change
worlds. And so we dated for a couple of years and I continued to work.
And I became active in working with the kids in the Elon Orphanage on a
volunteer basis. Wanted to bring 'em all home.
Bruce and I got married a couple of years later. Mike and Brian were
born. Mike was born and a couple of years later Brian. And at that time
we were living on Bass's Mountain, which is his folks' land. That is now
his. And, there was just not the right sense of community. Even though
three-fourths of the people in the neighborhood were his relatives,
distant or close, or whatever, there was no sense of community; there
was no sense of, of togetherness. And if you had problems, you had your
problems all by yourself. And their reserve was such that they didn't,
unless they were invited, they never dared cross that line. Now who in
the time of trouble is going to think of saying, holloring at their
neighbor, saying I need your help? To me, it ought to be obvious that
somebody is having troubles and they need your help. And it just wasn't
right for raising Mike and Brian - just was not right. And this house
had - the Perry's kids had built this house maybe fifteen years before
and there had been a series of people in and out, some of them newlyweds
in the community that would live here for a short time before they built
their own home or move somewhere else. And this was for sale and it was
right in the community and Bruce and I came and looked at it. And we
decided this is where we wanted to be. And Bruce has always loved Chapel
Hill. And at that time he was working at the University [of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill], and come to think of it, so was I. And it just
seemed to be a perfect move and I wanted Mike and Brian to go to the
schools here as opposed to Alamance county.